Reviews

Dropped-out folk singer's final solo album from 1972

Meticulously eccentric compilation of psychedelic rare groove

Romantic farce set around WWII occupation of France

Filmed shortly before her death, this extended reminiscence from Traudl Junge about her time working for Hitler promises more than it delivers. Junge opens with a doubtless sincere condemnation of Hitler for his evil-doings and reproaches herself for failing to recognise the evil in him. You suspect she's still a little starstruck and her recollections of him depict a kind man, albeit with a lot on his mind. Banal, unilluminating.

François Ozon's psychological thriller finds repressed crime writer Sarah (Charlotte Rampling) retiring to her editor's house in France to work on her new novel. Then his wayward daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) arrives, shattering the calm. Sagnier does her best teenage temptress, Rampling's initial disapproval turning to fascination as Julie racks up the notches on her bedpost. Until there's a murder. Quietly clever.

This six-part TV anthology, produced by Robert Altman in 1997, follows a pearl-handled handgun as it passes from owner to owner across America. The premise is strong, as is the cast (Martin Sheen, Randy Quaid and Kirsten Dunst), but the show never quite lives up to the first two episodes—"Columbus Day", in which James Gandolfini and Rosanna Arquette knock acting spots off each other, and "All The President's Women", directed by Altman in kooky mood.

For all their recorded lushness—and was there a more pristine '80s bauble than The Lexicon Of Love?—ABC never quite nailed the visuals. The Jerome K Jerome river-larks of "The Look Of Love" and cartoon capery of "How To Be A Millionaire" aside, it was disappointingly standard fare: Martin Fry doing lost and lovelorn while being cold-shouldered by aloof waifs. As the decade (and the hits) thinned out, the videos almost stopped trying altogether.

Awesome rebirth of original Country Queen, produced and arranged by The White Stripes' Jack White

Sixth album from California's desert-dwelling husband-and-wife team

San Francisco theatrical rock troupe in cult iconic shock